We are just wrapping up this weekends CORE Hunter education course at the Silvercore head office. Anyone interested in hunting still has lots of time to take their CORE course and get involved this season.

For three days in September, thousands of the rarest and strangest firearms available to collectors were up for grabs by the Rock Island Auction (RIA) company in Illinois. The myriad collection of Colt revolvers, finely engraved Winchester rifles, tiny derringers, and other historical antiques or curiosities raked in $11.6 million in sales. Amid it all, five particular firearms managed to steal the show.

“Two sayings come to mind after Rock Island Auction Company’s September 2014 Premiere Firearms Auction: ‘The best never goes out of style,’ and ‘What’s old is new again,’” stated RIA in a press release on Wednesday.

Of course, what’s old is also expensive. How much would you pay for a prototype Luger, silver-inlaid Westley Richards shotgun, or a captured World War II German paratrooper rifle? Well, if you were a serious collector, somewhere well into six figures.

Shell weight was between 2,352 and 2,940 pounds (1,067 and 1,334 kg). In testing with an 80 pound charge it fired the lighter shell a distance of 2,759 yards (2,523 m) with a flight time of 23 seconds.

Testing began on 19 October 1857 with further testing on 18 December 1857, 21 July 1858 and 28 of July 1858. Each test was brought to an end by damage to the mortar. A total of 19 rounds were fired with a rate of about 4 shells an hour being achieved.

Both mortars are in the collection of the Royal Armouries, the UK’s national museum of arms and armour.

The gun used for testing is on loan to the Royal Artillery and is located at Repository Road, opposite the army base in Woolwich, while the unfired gun is on display at the Royal Armouries Fort Nelson near Portsmouth.

Silvercore can provided all the equipment required for any live fire course you want to take. Let us know when you register and we will make sure everything from holsters to ammunition even firearms are at the range the day of your course.

Below is a section of the Canadian Criminal Code that can answer many of the misunderstood regulations surrounding prohibited devices related to firearms.

#2 Regarding bull-pup firearms is often confusing. We are not offering legal advice but have included the appropriate text for ease of reference. Simply put, the common consensus currently surrounding the legal status of bull-pup firearms in Canada is:

• Bull-pup firearms are fine

• Stocks that can be added to a firearm to convert them to a bull-pup are prohibited

1. Any electrical or mechanical device that is designed or adapted to operate the trigger mechanism of a semi-automatic firearm for the purpose of causing the firearm to discharge cartridges in rapid succession.

2. Any rifle, shotgun or carbine stock of the type known as the “bull-pup” design, being a stock that, when combined with a firearm, reduces the overall length of the firearm such that a substantial part of the reloading action or the magazine-well is located behind the trigger of the firearm when it is held in the normal firing position.

Former Cartridge Magazine Control Regulations

3. (1) Any cartridge magazine

(a) that is capable of containing more than five cartridges of the type for which the magazine was originally designed and that is designed or manufactured for use in

(i) a semi-automatic handgun that is not commonly available in Canada,

(ii) a semi-automatic firearm other than a semi-automatic handgun,

(iii) an automatic firearm whether or not it has been altered to discharge only one projectile with one pressure of the trigger,

(iv) the firearms of the designs commonly known as the Ingram M10 and M11 pistols, and any variants or modified versions of them, including the Cobray M10 and M11 pistols, the RPB M10, M11 and SM11 pistols and the SWD M10, M11, SM10 and SM11 pistols,

(v) the firearm of the design commonly known as the Partisan Avenger Auto Pistol, and any variant or modified version of it, or

(vi) the firearm of the design commonly known as the UZI pistol, and any variant or modified version of it, including the Micro-UZI pistol; or

(b) that is capable of containing more than 10 cartridges of the type for which the magazine was originally designed and that is designed or manufactured for use in a semi-automatic handgun that is commonly available in Canada.

(2) Paragraph (1)(a) does not include any cartridge magazine that

(a) was originally designed or manufactured for use in a firearm that

(i) is chambered for, or designed to use, rimfire cartridges,

(ii) is a rifle of the type commonly known as the “Lee Enfield” rifle, where the magazine is capable of containing not more than 10 cartridges of the type for which the magazine was originally designed, or

(iii) is commonly known as the U.S. Rifle M1 (Garand) including the Beretta M1 Garand rifle, the Breda M1 Garand rifle and the Springfield Armoury M1 Garand rifle;

(b) is not a reproduction and was originally designed or manufactured for use in a firearm that

(i) is commonly known as the Charlton Rifle,

(ii) is commonly known as the Farquhar-Hill Rifle, or

(iii) is commonly known as the Huot Automatic Rifle;

(c) is of the “drum” type, is not a reproduction and was originally designed or manufactured for use in a firearm commonly known as

(iii) the Bren Light machine-gun, or any variant or modified version of it, including the Mark 1, Mark 2, Mark 2/1, Mark 3 and Mark 4;

(d) is of the “metallic-strip” type, is not a reproduction and was originally designed or manufactured for use in conjunction with the firearm known as the Hotchkiss machine-gun, Model 1895 or Model 1897, or any variant or modified version of it, including the Hotchkiss machine-gun, Model 1900, Model 1909, Model 1914 and Model 1917, and the Hotchkiss machine-gun (Enfield), Number 2, Mark 1 and Mark 1*;

(e) is of the “saddle-drum” type (doppeltrommel or satteltrommel), is not a reproduction and was originally designed or manufactured for use in the automatic firearms known as the MG-13, MG-15, MG-17, MG-34, T6-200 or T6-220, or any variant or modified version of it; or

(f) is of the “belt” type consisting of a fabric or metal belt, is not a reproduction and was originally designed or manufactured for the purpose of feeding cartridges into a automatic firearm of a type that was in existence before 1945.

(3) Paragraph (1)(b) does not include any cartridge magazine that

(a) is of the “snail-drum” type (schneckentrommel) that was originally designed or manufactured for use in a firearm that is a handgun known as the Parabellum-Pistol, System Borchardt-Luger, Model 1900, or “Luger”, or any variant or modified version of it, including the Model 1902, Model 1904 (Marine), Model 1904/06 (Marine), Model 1904/08 (Marine), Model 1906, Model 1908 and Model 1908 (Artillery) pistols;

(b) was originally designed or manufactured for use in a firearm that is a semi-automatic handgun, where the magazine was manufactured before 1910;

(c) was originally designed or manufactured as an integral part of the firearm known as the Mauser Selbstladepistole C/96 (“broomhandle”), or any variant or modified version of it, including the Model 1895, Model 1896, Model 1902, Model 1905, Model 1912, Model 1915, Model 1930, Model 1931, M711 and M712; or

(d) was originally designed or manufactured for use in the semi-automatic firearm that is a handgun known as the Webley and Scott Self-Loading Pistol, Model 1912 or Model 1915.

(4) A cartridge magazine described in subsection (1) that has been altered or re-manufactured so that it is not capable of containing more than five or ten cartridges, as the case may be, of the type for which it was originally designed is not a prohibited device as prescribed by that subsection if the modification to the magazine cannot be easily removed and the magazine cannot be easily further altered so that it is so capable of containing more than five or ten cartridges, as the case may be.

(5) For the purposes of subsection (4), altering or re-manufacturing a cartridge magazine includes

(a) the indentation of its casing by forging, casting, swaging or impressing;

(b) in the case of a cartridge magazine with a steel or aluminum casing, the insertion and attachment of a plug, sleeve, rod, pin, flange or similar device, made of steel or aluminum, as the case may be, or of a similar material, to the inner surface of its casing by welding, brazing or any other similar method; or

(c) in the case of a cartridge magazine with a casing made of a material other than steel or aluminum, the attachment of a plug, sleeve, rod, pin, flange or similar device, made of steel or of a material similar to that of the magazine casing, to the inner surface of its casing by welding, brazing or any other similar method or by applying a permanent adhesive substance, such as a cement or an epoxy or other glue.

PART 5

PROHIBITED AMMUNITION

Former Prohibited Weapons Order, No. 10

1. Any cartridge that is capable of being discharged from a commonly available semi-automatic handgun or revolver and that is manufactured or assembled with a projectile that is designed, manufactured or altered so as to be capable of penetrating body armour, including KTW, THV and 5.7 x 28 mm P-90 cartridges.

2. Any projectile that is designed, manufactured or altered to ignite on impact, where the projectile is designed for use in or in conjunction with a cartridge and does not exceed 15 mm in diameter.

3. Any projectile that is designed, manufactured or altered so as to explode on impact, where the projectile is designed for use in or in conjunction with a cartridge and does not exceed 15 mm in diameter.

4. Any cartridge that is capable of being discharged from a shotgun and that contains projectiles known as “fléchettes” or any similar projectiles.